Friday, October 18, 2013

Welcome to my spot to celebrate friendship and shoes. Witches shoes that is!!! The lovely Celia of "Adventures of the Striped Stockings" fame, is hosting a get together this weekend (Saturday the 19th and Sunday the 20th) and I welcome you to my place here, to show you what my contribution to the party is:

I made a witch's shoe greeting card that can stand on a shelf to decorate your home. Here you can see the entire card with four decorated shoes. I imagine I'll be adding more stuff before I send it. We'll leave that part to the muse.

I'll be putting the names of the players into a witchs' hat and making the draw tomorrow, so I can hopefully get this off in to the mail system so it'll arrive before Halloween!
Thanks for dropping by today and I hope to see you again soon. Hugs, Norma, x

Saturday, October 12, 2013

My project for this drawing challenge with the theme 'homage' took a complete right turn as I was busily working on my original idea. Right in the middle of searching for some special papers, I came across a page that I'd tucked away specially so I'd not lose it and of course lost it in my memory of where I'd stashed it. The minute I spotted it, my idea for this drawing challenge took on a different theme.

Some years ago I owned a yahoo group with my daughter. For two years we traded flat paper art dolls every month, with players around the world. I had no drawing skills whatsoever and started with a pretty basic doll. All of my faces were cut from magazines and glued on to a head shape. After a few months I really desired strongly to be able to draw my own face for my art dolls.

One day I found a face shape that I liked a lot, and grabbed a magnifying glass to study it in minute detail. I tried to see it differently than just glancing, and studied the colour of the skin, shadows, angles, little things I'd never noticed before. I grabbed a pencil and my water colour box and a tiny brush and just started to try to copy to my best ability, what I saw through the magnifying glass. The whole procedure took only about 20 minutes and I am not kidding.

Here are the steps I took (I pasted numbers beside the drawing/painting for you to follow):
1. I noticed that there was a definite shadow under the chin area of a face and kind of noticed where about the neck might meet the face area.
2. Clearly, I wanted my gal to have freckles! HA! Now I'm noticing where shading might occur in the eye area and have left the upper lid unshaded. I'm also noticing more about mouth colour/shading, and have extended the eye lashes beyond the edge of the face at this angle.
3. Looking at overall shading of the whole face, and trying to figure out the angle/shading of the nostrils.
4. Now I'm figuring out a pouty mouth shape and more specific shading of the eye area.
5. My pouty gal is coming along. Figuring out eyebrows here.
6. This is a breakthrough. Her eyes have opened! Now she has better shading under the nose and above the upper lip.
7. BINGO. I put all of the above 6 elements together and this is her face and this face is the only face I know how to do and I've been doing it for years now. Her hair is kind of over the top, hey?
8. Studying better face angles.
9. Giving her some life with skin tone and an actual outline that I can use. I made a template of this and used to use the template for everything but now I draw it free hand.

In the folder along with the page of face practicing, I found an outline of the paper doll she was to become. I made a template of this also. The snippet of lace would be important in her dress.

Here is the finished paper doll (which you have seen before and may remember.) She remains one of my all time favourite doll that I've made:

THANK YOU to Kristen, dear art friend. As host you have chosen such a fun experience for me. For me to share my original experience of learning to draw something was a walk down memory lane.
To view all of the entries in this drawing challenge pop on over to see Kristen's blog, highlighted above. Thank you for dropping in today and I hope to see you again soon! Norma, x

Sunday, October 6, 2013

I made a paper cup with saucer for your drawing challenge and to honour your birth day! May you have the happiest of times, and may you enjoy the best of health and the most fun creating your beautiful art! Thank you for hosting this week's drawing challenge dear Stefanie!
I've missed the whole month of September somehow! I did have fun though. Well, hello everyone! Nice to see you again. For those of you wanting to view the art offered in this drawing challenge with the theme of cup, click on to Stefanie (the birthday gal) above. You'll be transported to a world where much eye candy and good feelings dwell. See you again soon, I hope! Norma, xo

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